What You Need To Know About Infectious Disease
Prevention & Treatment
Government Policies
Keeping our nation safe from disease outbreaks depends on effective and well-coordinated programs that monitor public health. What are some of the key efforts at work in the United States?
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What do you know about infectious disease?
Of the more than 1,700 known viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens that infect people, how many have come from animals?
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
More than half of the known pathogens that infect people have come from animals. Of the 37 new infectious diseases identified in just the past 30 years, two-thirds sprang from animals.
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Sorry, that’s incorrect.
More than half of the known pathogens that infect people have come from animals. Of the 37 new infectious diseases identified in just the past 30 years, two-thirds sprang from animals.
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Correct!
More than half of the known pathogens that infect people have come from animals. Of the 37 new infectious diseases identified in just the past 30 years, two-thirds sprang from animals.
Infectious Disease Defined
- Climate Change
The process of shifting from one prevailing state in regional or global climate to another. Climate change is typically the preferred term over “global warming” because it helps to convey that the characteristics of climate change are not limited to rising temperatures.
National Academies
Search the National Academies Press website by selecting one of these related terms.
Source Material
- Enhancing Food Safety: The Role of the Food and Drug Administration (2010)
- BioWatch and Public Health Surveillance: Evaluating Systems for the Early Detection of Biological Threats—Abbreviated Version, Summary (2009)
- Sustaining Global Surveillance and Response to Emerging Zoonotic Diseases (2009)
- The U.S. Commitment to Global Health: Recommendations for the Public and Private Sectors (2009)
- Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection: Assessing the Challenges, Finding Solutions—Workshop Summary (2007)
- Addressing Foodborne Threats to Health: Policies, Practices, and Global Coordination—Workshop Summary (2006)
- Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response (2003)
